David Cross

So we're shooting some stick late one night at a Portland, Oregon dive called The Hungry Tiger. The previous night we'd watched a Mr. Show DVD and listened to David Cross's latest CD, so it's way too much of a coincidence to look over at the other table and see that the guy shooting next to me is ... David Cross. I walked over to our outfit to find that Mr. Michael had noticed it, too, but Max was denying it. It seems that David Cross's crafty whiskers baffled Max, much as Clark Kent's crafty glasses baffled Lois Lane.

Doc: "That's David Cross right there."
Mr. Michael: "It sure is."
Max: "No it is not."
Jackie (thinks to herself): Who's David Cross?(Repeat half a dozen times, until --)
Max: "Damn...! That is David Cross!"

That's how Max drew the short straw, which in this case consisted of the duty to take Wagner over for a photo. Except while I was in the john she passed the straw along to Jackie, whose approach line was something like, "So are you a comedian or something?" I stumbled back into the room to find Jackie and Max posing David Cross with Wagner. As I'm trying to find my camera, I hear Max mumbling "Big fan, big fan" and babbling incomprehensibly about how she heckled a heckler once at one of his shows in Portland. Or words to that effect. My ears mostly don't work when Max talks.

But the important thing to note is --

On 30 April 2003, 1:03 a.m. PST + about 28 seconds, give or take, according to the clock in Max's photo:

David Cross met the greatest composer of all time.

Photo by Max

No, Donny want green Wagner!

Max, embarrassed at her extreme star-strucky tongue-tiediness, strategically withdrew. I took the picture below. Jackie decided to administer the Mexican Bingo Card treatment, an adaptation of a fortune-telling method I learned from Babsy. The subject holds a deck of cards between the knuckles while the brujo smacks at them with the index finger until only one is left. This becomes "their" card, whatever that means. Actually, what it means is that they get a Mexican Bingo Card with "deuceofclubs.com" written on it. I happened to be carrying Mexican Bingo Cards because I don't even have the sense God gave a person who would just go and order some goddam business cards.

Naturally, David Cross was left holding the El Diablo card.

Cross: What does that mean?
Doc: Ummm ... you're evil?
Cross: I can live with that.

Jackie told him his photo would be on deuceofclubs.com the next day. Been here before? Then you know what a big fat lie THAT was.

PBR Street Gang, yo.

Long-overdue update from July, 2005:

Here's a man clearly overjoyed to be reunited with Wagner in Manhattan, even though he did not remember him. It's a trick celebrities can do.